Make Seriously | Design and Life

The End of an Era

Last night, Ashton Kutcher (@aplusk on Twitter) did something remarkable. He showed the world (or at least the developed world) a truth. It’s no secret that the newspapers are dying. Blogs have become the standard source of media for millions, and news outlets moved their print articles online to stay relevant. The problem they’re finding, however, is that there is no viable business model if they want to maintain their business the way it was run before the online takeover.

Take the New York Times, for instance. Most of it’s content is completely free via the web, but consumers still have to pay for a print version. So what do even loyal customers do? Keep the content, ditch the bills. It’s great for the mass market, and it’s improved readership. But what this move can’t do is pay the bills for the reporters around the world who contribute to the Times. In other words, these businesses can’t keep their models and still hope to compete, much less thrive.

So what amazing thing did Mr. Kutcher do last night? For free, via video, competing against one of the largest media outlets, he streamed live video of himself to thousands of people across the world to declare victory in a competition for market share. Mr. Kutcher had one million followers before CNN. What’s so big about that? For one, Ashton doesn’t have a television station, video producers or a worldwide network to help him get followers. He has Lil’ Kim on YouTube, he has PDiddy on Twitter, and he has the know-how to use social media to create an enormous following without having to spend a dime. He showed that he, as a single person, can hold more clout than a media conglomerate.

So what does this mean for the media? It means their business model is threatened. I would even go as far as to say it was obliterated last night. If we were to look at the cost of production for battle between the two, there would be a huge discrepancy. CNN has to pay contributors, staff, camera men, writers; they have a whole lot of people working to push for the win. Ashton Kutcher had himself, a bunch of free software and a lot of community influence. He’s not the only one. Of the top ten Tweeters, seven are individuals and two are media outlets. In case you’re not convinced, here’s the whole list. The crazy thing is, it’s not just major celebs on the list, there are up and coming stars in their own right littering the top fifty influencers. That’s hundreds of thousands of followers for relative unknowns. And they’re competing with the likes of CNN, The New York Times and NPR. Did I mention for free?

So the business model is bust. Kutcher declared “check!” last night, and now it’s up to the media to decide how to respond. Wave a white flag? Bonzai rush down the hill? Or maybe, just maybe, they’ll rethink the strategy all-together.

Some Really Awesome Tools to Commemorate the Inauguration

For those who aren’t keeping up to date, there are several cool visuals out there to help commemorate and share experiences from today’s historic inauguration. Regardless of your political sway, this is a huge moment in America’s history and in the advancement of civil rights. As such, people are doing all they can to share in the moment and to become a part of history. Their names won’t be in the books, but there is always the pride and joy of saying “I was there when America broke the racial barrier to the presidency”.

CNN is offering up Your View of History, which allows iReporters and laypeople to post their photos and reactions from their experience at the mall. Posters put their content at their viewpoint, and describe their experience from that point. There are definitely some great candid images and a lot of great visual descriptions of the emotional aspect of the event.

Even cooler, CNN is also offering the chance to rebuild The Moment using Photosynth. The short version: Live attendees post their images to the photosynth database, and it uses Microsofts crazy new technology to rebuild a 3D rendering of “the moment” of the inauguration. To get a good idea, here’s a moment and a description of the software. Reeeeeally cool stuff.

CNN is offering a third option for the tech savvy out there who can’t not check their facebook every five minutes: a live status update response to the events of the day as they unfold, without blinders to statuses across participating pages. In other words, you can see the updates without leaving facebook, without opening up your profile, and without the minor lunacy of message boards. I don’t have a link, but you can find it on their home page.

MSNBC is giving viewers a chance to brush up and compare Obama’s speech to others by offering the last 18 Inaugural speeches. Also pretty cool, and very informative. It’s interesting to see the approach each president has taken in his first address to the people, and then to look back at how they acted in office.

MSNBC also does an amazing job at allowing people to report their own reactions of the Inaugural by giving them the power to create their own clips. I’m pretty sure this is the web2.0 innovation of the day. It allows users to do what the news normally does, except without the need to be there with fancy equipment for capturing audio and video. It basically comes down to permission to make it what you will, and that’s a huge step for a media outlet like that.